


Ash to Ashes, Dust to Dust

by ElegantFeatherDuster



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-19
Updated: 2014-10-19
Packaged: 2018-02-21 17:12:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2475992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElegantFeatherDuster/pseuds/ElegantFeatherDuster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Clint's voice crackles to life over the two-way radio, dripping in pseudo-cheerfulness. </i>
</p><p>
  <i>"Today on The Everything Sucks Show: We're still running low on, well, just about everything. The weather forecast is a 90% chance of acid rain and nuclear fallout followed by a 50% chance of something else fucking awful by this evening and some nice nuclear winter after the sun goes down. In current events: a new contender has taken the number one slot on the ‘most likely to kill us in our sleep’ leaderboard and his name starts with ‘lo’ and ends with ‘ki.’ The reigning champion Natasha Romanoff is understandably furious about this development..."</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Tony glances over at Loki in the passenger seat, his long legs propped up on the dashboard and arms crossed across his chest as he looks out the window. There’s a peeved frown hovering on his lips and that’s more than enough reason to leave Clint's fake news broadcast playing as their rag-tag convoy drives through the California desert, kicking up a billowing cloud of dust as they go.</i>
</p><p>A post-nuclear apocalypse story about meeting fallen gods in abandoned shopping malls, desert road trips and finding the future in unexpected places.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2014 Frostiron Big Bang with gorgeous art by the ever-talented [Moonriot.](http://moonriot.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Also un-beta'd. (I'm so sorry.)

 

Nuking New York, well, it _worked_ and that was exactly the problem. When the next portal opened over Moscow, no one was particularly surprised that the council voted to nuke that too like the Cold War had simply disappeared from their collective memory. Then Shanghai happened, Mexico City, London, Tokyo, Mumbai, Johannesburg. At some point, the aliens realized they could make the humans destroy themselves, and by the time they realized what was going on, it was already too late.

Tony still wakes with regular frequency from dreams of New York, jolted out of sleep by the gasping, empty feeling of knowing it was too late, of yelling at Jarvis to activate all the security measures the tower had to offer. He remembers the desperate last minute phone call to Pepper that she hadn't answered. (Sometimes in his dreams she does and those are always the worst of all.) He hasn't seen her since, but he's flown over the course of her last flight a hundred times and never once found a scrap of wreckage. So he tells himself that she's alive somewhere, getting along just fine without him. It helps him get out of bed in the mornings.

Steve, Bruce, Natasha and Clint are among Tony's fellow survivors and all four have come with him across the country to Malibu where his last working full-scale reactor powers the house and provides a measure of shelter to the rag-tag group of people that they've collected along the way.

It turns out that Steve's natural talent for leadership is an invaluable asset and that Natasha and Clint have an uncanny ability to drag supplies apparently out of thin air every time they go out. A man named Sam Wilson pops up one day out of nowhere, or more accurately descends from the sky on metal wings looking half starved but determined. He's friendly and loyal and he's got a smart mouth on him that makes Tony like him immediately.

Thor disappeared months ago, almost at the beginning of it all, taking Jane with him and leaving only a promise behind. But he hasn't come back and they've mostly given up hoping that he will. What is there for him on Midgard anymore anyway? As far as they can tell, the Asgardians have given Earth up as a bad job.

One thing he did leave behind, however, is a girl named Darcy who claims to be a scientist friend of Jane’s—and by extension Thor—based out of New Mexico. She’s irreverent and oddly charming and Tony likes her too even if Steve never quite seems to know what to do with her.

Most important, however, is the day about a month in when Tony hears the familiar, solid thud of an Iron Man suit landing on concrete and then the ping of an authorized access code. He’s already over the sofa and half way to the front door like a kid at Christmas when Jarvis announces Colonel James Rhodes has arrived on the premises.

Tony has sporadic communications with a group called the X-men who've apparently created their own little sanctuary in the midst of this chaos. He's heard things on the long distance wireless about other teams too—mostly superheroes and whatever humans they've seen fit to take under their wings—scattered around the world in Canada, England, Germany, Wakanda, Japan. The list goes on and it's nice to know they're not alone, even if that's just about all it means. They're really on their own out here and they know it.

Clint and Natasha do most of the scouting for supplies, driving a run down old van out into the wild and returning hours or sometimes days later with whatever they've managed to collect.

But just the two of them can't do everything. Clint and Natasha for all their skills only have so many hands and so big a vehicle and Steve and Sam have their hands full organizing the base camp. So the rest of them take shifts and that means that sometimes it falls to Tony, despite all protestations, to take his new favorite pick-up truck and go looking for things out in what they've not-so-affectionately started calling the The Wasteland.

That brings him to now, frozen in place by the realization that the tall, lanky, disheveled stranger standing motionless and half hidden between the slanting shadows of the abandoned mall is Loki. _The_ Loki. The same crazed, alien god who started this whole mess to begin with and now he's lurking in a dim, broken mall like some kind of deranged rat.

Tony's not sure who moves first, but there's a vicious, razor-sharp knife flying for his face at nearly the same time he fires his repulsor right at Loki's chest. Both miss, and so begins their dance.

Tony vaults over a decorative bench and behind a potted plant that still looks pretty perky after ten months of apocalypse if only because it was never alive to begin with. The dusty, plastic leaves provide just enough cover to give him a moment to breath.

"Shit, Jarvis?" he asks of the simple black band on his wrist. But he's underground and Jarvis' long range capabilities are only so good these days. So it's frustrating, but not surprising, that he receives no response and therefore no assistance.

He's got the essentials on him: boots, gauntlets, some assorted armor over his shoulders and chest, but the helmet is back in the car and the rest is long gone, lost to old battles or other projects, and he hasn't found the parts or time to remake it all. There have been too many other necessities to fabricate, things that were more important to their collective survival than his Iron Man suit.

Except that as of sixty seconds ago, his suit has rocketed straight up to the top of the list of things that could potentially contribute to his continued survival and he's really regretting all the times he was forced to put it off. Loki isn't the type to pull punches and this is bound to be one hell of a nasty fight.

Loki's slower than Tony remembers, or he thinks he is, but perhaps time and anger have warped his memory of New York or maybe the lack of glowing, poisonous blue in the middle of Loki's spear means something. Tony ponders these things as he steps out of the path of that scepter, the cruel tip missing his throat by bare centimeters.

He escapes the blow by the skin of his teeth and manages to catch Loki off guard with a blast in the shoulder, knocking him back and earning a pained snarl of noise for his trouble as the spear clatters heavily across the marble tile.

Loki throws another two knives at him, one of which passes narrowly by his ear while the other opens a stinging wound across his thigh when he isn't quite quick enough to avoid both. Loki's better with these than the staff, Tony thinks with a startled gasp, and wonders why he isn't using more of them. It's not like Loki to neglect an obvious strength when it could earn him the upper hand.

The answer becomes obvious several exchanged blows later when Loki throws a glitter of green and gold light into his face unexpectedly and makes a bid for one of the knives lying on the crackled marble to Tony's right. Of course he doesn't have an unlimited supply, Tony thinks and wonders how he didn't learn that lesson from Clint and his constant bitching about running out of arrows. He thinks petulantly that he can be excused because Loki is magic, or something else that the scientist in Tony is infinitely interested in identifying, and therefore normal rules need not always apply.

The flash temporarily blinds him, leaving ghostly flares of light and color behind his eyelids. He gets lucky with a blind kick and manages to get Loki's legs out from under him. But Loki is quicker and manages to floor him on the way down, grab the knife and roll back to his feet in one smooth motion all while Tony scrambles backwards and staggers up to his feet with the help of some well timed bursts from his repulsors. So much for grace.

The knife Loki succeeded in retrieving ends up embedded several inches deep in one of the pieces of plating on his left gauntlet and god damn it, Tony's going to have to fix that now. That gauntlet was already running on super glue and a prayer and now it's completely useless as anything but a meager shield.

By some miracle, Tony manages to hold his own, but the fight is taxing on his already exhausted body and he knows that if they keep this up—as Loki seems perfectly happy to do—the conclusion is inevitable. There's just no competing with Asgardian stamina. So he decides to die with dignity, or at least with the last goddamn word as befits a man of the Stark line.

“You know what?” Tony gasps coming to a stand-still and holding up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Fuck it. Go ahead and kill me.”

It's such a bizarre move, so devoid of any sense that Loki can't help but _not_ kill him in surprise.

“This is pointless,” Tony continues, giving him a look like he dares him to do it. “You obviously got fucked over by this whole deal too. What the hell are we fighting over? Victoria's Secret?” he says, nodding at a dark shop front off to their right.

Loki doesn't particularly care for the words—how crass Midgardians can be—but he identifies intimately with the sentiment. He did indeed get "fucked over" and he's far from happy about it.

They're fighting each other because they can, because they're enemies and that's what they're _supposed_ to do. But at this point, on this barren world, what does it matter when there's nothing left to conquer and so very little left to protect?

Loki lowers the point of his weapon slowly, body straightening to its full height as he inspects Tony with suspicion.

"You wish to die?" he asks. He has met men like that before, but did not expect Anthony Stark to be one of them.

"Not really," Tony groans, starting to feel just how many bruises Loki has battered into his body now that he has a moment to breath.

Loki isn't really sure what to do with that and simply can't find the energy to analyze the intricate workings of the Stark brain. But at the very least, it seems that Tony isn't going to attack him, so he allows himself to sit—collapse—on the blown out wreck of some Midgardian machine he can't be bothered to identify. Perhaps it was a car in some previous life.

"Leave," he orders tiredly and isn't particularly surprised when this lunatic of a man drops down next to him with another groan instead.

Up close, Loki can see he looks the worse for wear, exhausted and older under a thin layer of grime and stubble.

“Radiation,” Tony explains with a vague wave when he catches Loki examining his face. “We all got exposed. Bruce brewed up some concoction that'll keep us going for a while, but it tastes like shit going down and twice as bad coming up, which is usually what happens.”

“I'm immune,” Loki admits sullenly.

“So's Bruce. Cap too,” Tony sighs deeply. “But I'm really just some regular old asshole under this armor.”

“What will happen to you?” Loki asks, curious despite himself.

“Probably catastrophic organ failure,” Tony shrugs like he's discussing whether or not they're going to get any rain later and not his own imminent demise.

“How unpleasant,” Loki hums, looking away to survey the mall as though there's even an inch of it he hasn't scoured since taking up residence here.

“Mmhm,” Tony hums in agreement.

Then, against his will, Tony's stomach rumbles.

“What?” he demands, glaring when Loki chuckles quietly.

“Nothing,” Loki smirks. “I just believe I understand the sentiment.”

“So gods get hungry too, huh?” Tony says, unable to stop the slight smile that creeps onto his face as he understands. One of these days, prodding sleeping super villains is going to get him killed.

“On occasion.”

“How long has it been since you've eaten?” Tony says, watching him.

“Since all of this began,” Loki admits, amused by the astonished expression on Tony's face.

"I can go for much longer without food than you pitiful mortals," Loki sniffs, mustering a little superiority for effect.

"But there's a Target over there," Tony says, gesturing. "Why do you think I'm here?"

"Sacked, long before I arrived," Loki sighs.

"What I wouldn't give for a decent liquor store," Tony moans by way of response, rubbing a hand over his face. "Still, I guess it's worth seeing what's left."

"Not much," Loki says and doesn't mention the truly impressive amount of supplies he's managed to hoard for himself.

"Maybe I'll bring the team home some underwear, then," Tony snorts and Loki can only glance at the pink and white striped displays covered in plush pink dogs and roll his eyes.

"And oh look, they're having a sale," Tony says, pointing to the American Eagle down the way. “Buy one, get one."

"You talk too much," Loki murmurs.

"Well excuse me, princess."

"Call me that again and I will end your pitiful life," Loki sighs, too lazy even to make it sound intimidating.

"Fine," Tony huffs and starts examining the wound on his leg, hissing softly when he makes the mistake of touching it.

"Where are your friends?" Loki asks, just to be certain he doesn't have to worry about more Avengers coming down on his head any time soon.

"Back at the house," Tony says which is frustratingly unspecific, but does allay Loki's immediate concern.

"Brave of you to come alone," he sneers.

"Gods crazier than a bag of cats aside, there isn't a whole lot out here I can't handle," Tony shrugs. Bruce was meant to come with him, but he’d gotten side tracked and Tony knows that Science-Bro-Code rule number one is that science bros don’t interrupt other science bros when the project gets good.

Loki frowns slightly at the description of his sanity, but decides not to pursue it.

"You don't have a first aid kit stashed down here somewhere do you?" Tony continues, not very hopeful that the answer will be ‘yes’. Medical supplies are rare and valuable and even if Loki had managed to acquire some, Tony's reasonably certain he wouldn't be in the mood to share.

Tony also has no way of knowing that his second guess is entirely correct.

"No," Loki lies easily.

"Damn," Tony sighs, levering himself to his feet with a hiss and taking a few limping steps towards the nearest clothing store in search of something to tie around the wound until he can get back to the house.

Loki continues to watch him like some kind of huge, horrifying, leather-clad bird of prey the entire time it takes him to pick the least offensively patterned ladies' scarf off a rack and tie it around his thigh.

"See something you like?" Tony jokes because honestly, Loki’s staring just a little too hard.

"No," Loki says with a smirk that's somewhere between cruel and amused and it makes Tony laugh.

"Must not be looking," Tony says and realizes far too late it sounds far more like flirting than he's really comfortable with. Loki doesn't seem to notice though, or else he chooses to ignore it which is small blessing either way.

"So are you going to bite my head off if I take a look around?" Tony says, all humor and bravado. But there's also a thread of real concern that he knows he'd never be able to hide from Loki if he tried.

"Most likely," Loki shrugs, leaning back.

It's actually oddly hilarious that Loki has taken up residence in a mall, holed up like some kind of angry animal that hisses and snaps at anyone else that dares come too close. But then again, that's really what the whole human race is doing these days: staking out these tiny, meaningless claims and defending them with everything they have. It is the end of days, after all.

"What if I give you a present?" Tony asks next because Loki has been surprisingly civil so far. Maybe he'll keep it up with a little positive reinforcement.

"I sincerely doubt you have anything I want, Stark," Loki sighs.

"What about food?"

And that has Loki's attention, his gaze snapping to Tony's face instantly.

“What do you want in return?” Loki says suspiciously and god, how he wants food, but he knows better than to agree to something so blindly. Kindness like this is rare and doubly suspicious when the offer comes from an Avenger.

“Nothing. Just let me look around for anything you haven't claimed. You'll definitely owe me one later though,” Tony tells him and at least Loki can tell he's being honest. It makes him nervous—he's never liked owing favors—but he's hungry and tired and he knows he can break the promise later if he absolutely needs to. Loki is a man of his word only when it suits him to be.

"Very well," he says, careful to keep his tone neutral. It seems unlikely, but Tony could also be leading him into some kind of elaborate trap, though for what possible end he doesn't know.

+

“What happened to you?” Steve says the moment he catches sight of Tony—ruffled, dirty and with a strip of fabric tied tight around his leg that Steve suspects covers up some form of wound. He's definitely limping as he ducks through the narrow opening between two pieces of rubble they've erected in the entranceway. A surprising amount of the glass in the house has survived—they probably have the best view of the nuclear apocalypse around—but they've also been known to get some extraordinarily desperate visitors and sheet glass windows aren't very easy to defend against small, angry mobs with a penchant for tossing rocks.

“You'll never guess what I picked up at the mall,” Tony replies and Steve instantly dislikes the slightly manic grin that accompanies the words.

“You didn't 'pick me up',” Loki says coldly as he ducks in behind Tony and then freezes the moment he realizes that not one, but three Avengers are all staring right at him like they're a split second away from tearing him into tiny, unrecognizable pieces.

"What the hell is this?" Clint says slowly and there's murder in his tone.

"Before you murder the guy, at least hear me out—" Tony starts, but is cut off.

"Why did you bring him here, Tony?" Steve demands and it's his soldier voice, the one that makes people want to stand up and salute.

"Uh," Tony says eloquently and finds that he doesn't, strictly speaking, have a good answer to that. "The Brady Bunch was a few weirdos short?"

"He needs to leave. Now." Clint demands.

Natasha says curiously silent, observing the scene playing out in front of her with an unreadable mask over whatever expression she might have had.

Surprisingly, Loki is the one to nod and take a step back in the direction he'd come, acquiescing easily to Clint's demand.

"At least give him a sandwich before he goes," Tony says. "He hasn't eaten since New York."

"Really?" Bruce says, appearing at the top of the stairs down to the workshop. Loki tenses instantly, all attention focused on Bruce like he half expects the Other Guy to emerge right this moment and pound him into the floor.

"So he says," Tony says. "I promised him food and he didn't kill me."

Loki glances at him briefly, interested in the lie. It's not a complete fabrication so much as a combination of unrelated statements designed to lead the other Avengers to a certain conclusion. It's very much like something he would have done and for a supposed hero, surprising.

Steve still doesn't look even the slightest bit happy about it, but relents in the end with the caveat that there will be a team meeting later on to decide Loki's ultimate fate.

Clint disappears almost immediately, which puts a damper on Steve's demand that the meeting take place as soon as possible, but also doesn't surprise any of them. Natasha continues to stare Loki down like he's some kind of puzzle, Bruce sits as far away as humanly possible while maintaining line of sight and Steve keeps his shield suspiciously close to hand while he goes about his business, all of which very conveniently happens to be nearby.

In the end, Tony is the only one willing to get close to where Loki sits, incongruous in half-shredded leather and dirty gold against the cushions of the expensive designer sofa. He brings Loki pasta in the end and gets a slightly bemused eyebrow as his only form of thanks.

"We don't actually have bread right now," Tony explains concerning the lack of promised sandwich. "It doesn't keep well."

Loki's only response is a noncommittal hum as he picks up the fork.


	2. Chapter 2

Tony fears the team meeting, not because he's in any way afraid of his fellow Avengers but because he knows that hell will freeze over before the others elect to let Loki stay. The problem is that he's not even sure yet why _he_ feels like Loki should stay, much less how to convince the rest of a team that was only assembled to fight Loki in the first place. He would just be one more body on the list of people draining their resources.

Except, Tony realizes, that Loki has resources of his own. Much to his surprise, Loki had allowed him to strip everything his truck could possibly carry from the mall. But Tony isn't an idiot and he certainly didn't miss the way that the most useful things he found kept going missing, apparently into thin air since he never actually saw Loki carrying them off. But disappear they did and Loki has to be keeping his hoard somewhere.

Maybe it's a magic purse, maybe they'll have to go back to the mall, who knows. But Loki has supplies and if Tony can convince him to share, they might all end up better off for it. The real trick will be dissuading him of his dragon-like tendencies.

"You want me to just give you everything I have?" Loki demands angrily when Tony first approaches him with the idea.

"We need supplies! Unless you can prove we can trust you, the team is going to decide you can't stay because you're a burden on our resources. I can’t override that, and given your track record, I don't think you're likely to get a free pass just because people _like_ you," Tony tells him.

"Who says I want to stay?" Loki says coldly.

"The fact that you haven't left yet," Tony replies and really, it's a huge gamble. He doesn't know _what_ Loki wants or why he hasn't yet returned to his mall, with or without blood on his hands.

A weaker man might have quailed under the intensity of the gaze Loki pins him with then, but Tony is not a weaker man.

"This is your house. Surely it's your decision who gets to stay here," Loki murmurs icily.

"That's not how we work," Tony shrugs and watches the proverbial wheels turn behind Loki's eyes as he works through possible plans and excuses.

"I'd say you should get that hoarding problem checked out, but there aren't a lot of practicing psychologists left," Tony quips, finding it's more amusing than not to watch the annoyed quirking of Loki's mouth.

"What is it you need most, Stark?" Loki asks and alright, Tony can play ball if Loki is willing.

"Water," he says easily. "Hard to find anything clean that hasn't been irradiated and the desalination system Bruce and I rigged is too slow and can't keep up with demand."

He expects Loki to ask what else, to make him continue playing this back-and-forth game and listing the things they're the most desperate for until he finds one he's willing to trade. But surprisingly, Loki only smirks and inclines his head.

"Then I will give you water," he says, looking far too pleased with himself.

"How much?" Tony demands, stunned and secretly hopeful.

"As much as you can use," Loki shrugs and Tony sure hopes he understands just how much that is.

"Is it clean? You're immune but the rest of us—" he starts.

"You're welcome to test it," Loki replies before he can finish.

Loki casts around the room briefly before settling on an empty water bottle that he plucks off of Tony's desk. He holds it up in the space between them, meeting Tony's eyes as he extends and concentrates his magic, filling the empty plastic with ice crystals that creep up the sides like slow-moving fingers. Tony watches, fascinated, as the ice reaches the top and then, when Loki is satisfied, collapses without warning into a crystal clear liquid that sloshes against the sides.

When he's finished, Loki holds out the bottle expectantly until Tony takes it, and then watches in patient silence as Tony first inspects the fluid himself and then gives a sample to Jarvis to test.

The results, when they come several moments later, leave Tony momentarily speechless.

"The sample contains H2O," Jarvis says and there's a moment where Tony really wants to thank him for stating the obvious and then he realizes that Jarvis isn't trying to be sassy. The sample is purer than any drinking water he's probably ever had.

“The sample contains no toxins that would be hazardous to human health if ingested and rates lower on the radiation scale than you yourself, sir,” Jarvis continues.

"It's completely pure," Tony mutters, half to himself and glances over just in time to catch the tail end of Loki's absolutely infuriating smirk.

"Oh, you're proud of yourself, aren't you?" he says, rolling his eyes as the smirk only grows.

+

Tony finds Steve working out in the room they designated as a gym and training room.

"Got time for that meeting, Cap?" Tony asks, leaning against the doorframe and watching Steve land a few more punches on the punching bag they keep having to repair every time Steve breaks it.

He does his level best to keep the smugness out of his tone, but he suspects just enough slips through because a tiny, vaguely disapproving frown creases Steve's mouth as he turns around to face him. Tony knows that frown; it's the "Tony is kind of an asshole" frown, but Steve is kind of a little shit sometimes too and somehow, despite everything, they are actually friends. So he tends not to take it too personally.

"Sure," Steve says and then, "Jarvis? Could you please call the others?"

"Of course, sir," Jarvis replies politely. He likes Steve, Tony knows, likes him a lot because Steve has always been flawlessly polite and after a few startled minutes there at the beginning, has taken his existence entirely in stride.

"Howard used to talk about making stranger things," Steve had shrugged at the time, effectively killing the conversation with a single mention of Tony's father.

Steve unwraps the tape from his hands with practiced efficiency as he speaks to Tony.

"How's Loki?" he asks, by which Tony knows he means "where is Loki and what is he doing?"

"In my lab," Tony shrugs, watching Steve's hands.

"Is that wise?"

"Jarvis is babysitting," Tony tells him with dry humor.

It only takes about fifteen minutes to assemble the group. They would have assembled even faster, but Clint has apparently been spending his free time practicing his drifting out in Tony's favorite car and had to be retrieved. Tony makes a mental note to give him some serious shit about it later on.

"We're going to need a water tank," Tony announces, cutting right to the chase once everyone has gathered together,

"We can get one, but what for?" Clint asks.

"I'm getting to that," Tony replies right as Steve says "we should decide about Loki before anything else."

"When is he leaving?" Clint says which pretty much sums up his position on the argument.

Bruce looks pensive and vaguely displeased and Natasha looks like nothing at all, so Tony is having a hard time gauging how he should play this one.

"This is the guy who tried to take over New York, right?" says Sam who Steve seems to have decided is an honorary Avenger whether SHIELD sanctions it or not.

"That's the long and short of it," Steve nods glancing around. "Which is why we're not too keen to be keeping him around."

"But he can help us," Tony says. "Extremely powerful alien god and all that."

"That's exactly the point," Steve replies. "We don't know what he wants, or if he plans to hurt anyone here."

"I don't think he does—" Tony begins but is cut off by Clint.

"It won't matter what you think when he's slitting your throat," he snaps.

"Why do you want him to stay?" Natasha asks calmly and leave it to her to pick the one question of thousands what he doesn't have an answer to. Loki is powerful, unusual, and strategically useful. Were he on their side, he would be an important asset. Tony tells them all of these things, but he still doesn't think Natasha is buying it.

"I understand. You might even be right. But we just can't risk it and that aside, we barely have enough supplies as it is," Steve says, perfectly reasonable. Initially, he’s not concerned by the way the corners of Tony's mouth twitch up, but one glance at the troubled expression on Rhodey’s face tells him just how wrong he is.

"See, the thing is, I already talked to him," Tony says with a pause for effect. "And it turns out he can give is as much water as we can handle."

There's a moment where the team just looks at him and he knows that every one of them is weighing the immense value of that contribution against the potential threat that Loki represents. It’s a very close thing.

"Tony, you can't just ignore what he's done," Bruce says calmly.

“He did throw you out a window,” Rhodey adds like Tony is likely to forget that experience any time soon.

"I'm not," Tony says vehemently. "But that doesn't mean it's all he's capable of. We all do this thing— we _have_ to. We turn the enemies we fight into abstract caricatures of real people, these vaguely sinister constructs and you know why? Because it hurts to be reminded that sometimes their stories are just as complex as ours."

"He's _killed_ innocent people," Steve argues, always the first to rise to a fight when it seems like Tony is going to start one.

"So have I. Hulk, Natasha, Clint. Do I need to keep going?" Tony snaps back and doesn't even feel all that guilty about the way that Steve flinches ever so slightly.

"You never had to make this choice, Steve. It was a black and white world, you versus the Nazis and you knew which side you were going to fight for. But we had to make a choice, almost all of us," Tony tells him.

"That's not true," Steve says. He knows the horrors of war, has seen some of the things that the people who were supposed to be on his side did. Thor too, for all he's a shining beacon of surety, is no more the perfect hero than any of the rest of them. But in a strange way, that's really the point Tony is getting at. Being a hero is about what side they choose to fight for every morning when they get up, not the sum total of the things they've done along the way. And if, for some unimaginable reason, Loki starts choosing to fight on their side, that's their answer.

"I wish I could be certain he means it," Steve says after a moment, some of the heat gone from his voice.

"Join the club," Tony snorts, his expression warming slightly as he watches Steve watch him.

"None of us will ever be free from our sins," Natasha murmurs, the first words she's spoken in some time. They all know what she means: that none of them are excusing Loki from his sins for even a moment. But it hits close to home for all of them in all the tender, guilty places they try to hide.

"Fine, he can stay," Clint groans, glancing around to a series of subtle nods and Tony is both surprised and immensely grateful that Clint is the first to say so. He's the one out of all of them that Tony most expected to object and honestly, Tony wouldn't even have blamed him.

"And if he doesn't behave, we can give him to the other guy as a chew toy," Bruce says with an almost-smile. It's not entirely unlike him to make a joke in a tense situation, but some combination of subject matter and tone suggests he has come to terms with his other side in a way he hadn't before and Tony almost wants to cheer at the revelation.

"Can I _please_ shoot him just once though?" Clint asks, only half joking.

"Maybe not your best idea, bird-brain. But if you convince him to spar with you..." Tony says and shrugs, catching the tail end of a very speculative look that passes over Natasha's face. He sees some bruises in Loki's future and doesn't feel even the slightest bit bad about recommending the idea.

 


	3. Chapter 3

Tony stands with his arms crossed over his chest, looking up at the largest intact water tank Clint and Natasha were able to find and thinks bemusedly that his architect would be furious at the way it throws off the entire architectural aesthetic of his Malibu Point home.

"Leave," Loki commands flatly from where he stands at Tony's side.

"Why?" Tony asks, casting a glance in his direction.

"I said leave," Loki repeats, giving him a glare for good measure.

"No," Tony replies, glaring right back at him.

"Don't be a child, Stark," Loki says snippily.

"Look, when complaints get raised about all of this, and I do mean _when_ , I can say I watched you do it. No foul play," Tony says and absolutely does not mention how enormously curious he is about Loki's magic.

Loki considers for a moment, really no more than the briefest pause, and then seems to decide that ignoring Tony is the next best option in lieu of shoving him off the roof and proceeds to do exactly that.

He faces the tank and does something complicated with his hands, and then all of a sudden he's holding an ornate blue box and Tony will eat his hat if it's not some kind of extremely powerful magic object because he swears he can feel the air crackling with energy and making the hairs on the back of his arms stand up.

The moment it's in his hands, Loki's skin starts to stain blue, oozing up from his fingertips and Tony wonders if this is what Loki didn't want him seeing.

Another complicated gesture and Loki begins to fill the tank they acquired for him with ice. Frost creeps like tendrils across the surface of the roof and Tony thinks that it might not have been such a bad idea to bring a coat after all as he steps out of the way of the approaching frost.

It takes Loki considerably longer to fill the tank than it had to fill the water bottle, but that's really to be expected. When he finishes, another easy twist of his hands makes the box disappears into thin air.

"There you are, Stark," Loki says and if anything, Tony would say he sounds tired. But no sign of it shows in his posture or movements and the blue of his skin is already receding swiftly back to whence it came.

"Does the box do that to you?" Tony says, nodding in his direction.

"Something like that," Loki murmurs, eyes lowering to his hands to watch as the skin bleeds back to pale pink.

"Interesting side effect," Tony comments idly as he turns his attention to the newly filled tank. Loki doesn't believe for even a moment that Tony doesn't have more questions, but in an unexpected display of tact, he doesn't ask.

Then he starts grinning like a lunatic and Loki can only watch in bemused silence.

"Jesus, they're going to love you. Not right away, but once everyone realizes they can take showers and do laundry..." he laughs, trailing off as he considers the possibilities that Loki has afforded them.

Later, after everyone in the house has taken ample advantage of their new-found showering abilities, there's a party. Tony brings out a single bottle of champagne he had squirreled away somewhere and even though it's not a lot to split, they pass out glasses and do their best.

"They're not going to say it, but this is at least half for you," Tony says, leaning back against the wall next to where Loki has been doing his best to put the wall in wallflower all evening.

Tony looks much better: clad in clean clothing and with his beard freshly trimmed. He'd tried to offer Loki something to wear, but Loki had only turned up his nose at the offer and appeared later in a different, clean outfit of unknown origin. Tony hadn't said a word, but he had given Loki a once over and then shrugged and gone about his business.

"And the other half?" Loki inquires, glancing at him.

"That's for us. For making it this far. For surviving against all odds," Tony answers, gaze traveling over the small assembled crowd.

"You mortals are resilient, if nothing else," Loki agrees.

"I'm going to take that as a compliment," Tony chuckles in reply.

"As well you should," Loki says, a smile hovering at the edges of his lips. He's in a good mood and he blames it entirely on the infectious nature of the party. But he's feeling generous and oddly tolerant of Tony's particular brand of humor, so he plays along.

They sit in companionable silence for a short time while Tony takes pulls from a truly abhorrent light beer that was his only option after the meager serving of champagne. Apparently, even other scavengers had passed right over it or so Natasha says. But Tony knows better that to take everything she says at face value and he's at least half certain she has a bottle of vodka hidden away somewhere. Bitterly, he hopes it's Swedish vodka, just to piss her off.

After a while spent watching Tony's vaguely displeased face after every sip, Loki sighs and hands over a glass of whiskey that he pulls out of the air with a clever twist of his fingers. It's worth giving away a little of his precious store just for the sheer glee that lights up Tony's face and the speed at which he abandons his previous drink into the clutches of an unsuspecting Rhodey who just so happens to be passing by.

Eventually, Tony wanders off and tricks Steve into helping him challenge Clint and Natasha to some kind of complex contest that involves small white balls, red paddles and several rather poor renditions of pop songs. Clint gets knocked out of the running first and then Tony, which would be disappointing except that watching Natasha go head to head with Steve is worth every moment.

Once he's finished, Tony appears at Loki's side again, flushed and grinning and clearly pleased with himself. On a whim, he pulls Loki away and down to his lab, abandoning the rest of the party.

"See, here's something you might find interesting," Tony says casually, fiddling with something just out of sight as Loki stands by and watches with distant interest.

"I actually had two bottles," Tony says and then there’s a loud pop and he holds up a freshly opened bottle of champagne with an expression of smug triumph.

"Devious," Loki smirks slowly. "I knew there was a reason I find you ever so slightly less intolerable than the rest of the mortals on this world."

"High praise," Tony laughs, taking out a pair of tall, thin flutes that he sets carefully on the counter to fill.

Between the two of them, the bottle disappears quickly and then it's straight on to Loki's Magic Secret Whiskey Stash which, while not bottomless, boasts a nice, well-rounded variety of brands and flavors. God only knows what liquor store he raided and why he chose to keep what seems like everything in it. But then, Tony thinks with a bemused smile, if he could magic his possessions into thin air, he might end up with quite the collection as well.

"Although I’d skip the cupcake vodka," he finishes when he tells Loki this and gets a mildly exasperated look for his efforts.

Loki has been looking at him like that ever since the beginning, one part superiority, one part dislike and two parts exasperation. Except that Tony is certain that lately it's been shifting slowly from genuine dislike to annoyance and then on to something else he can't quite name, particularly when he's nursing a pleasant alcohol buzz.

"I always hate when people you're supposed to hate turn out not to be so intolerable after all," he groans and after a long moment of scrutiny, Loki huffs a soft laugh, says, "as do I” and offers him another drink.

It’s convenient that Tony sleeps in his workshop because it makes it that much easier to crawl into bed when he’s finished getting far drunker than he intended with the god of mischief and magic.

Tony has gone head to head with Thor in the past and regretted it for days after. Loki had been a little easier to keep up with, but then again, he could easily have been humoring Tony the entire time.

The vast majority of the residents at 10880 Malibu Point sleep in Tony's bedroom which has been converted to a communal sleeping area in much the same way that much of the main level has been converted to a series of store rooms housing everything from food to weaponry. The exceptions are the common area, the kitchen and the gym which remain open for obvious reasons. Tony's pretty sure there's a decent joke to be made about inviting so many people into his bedroom and he knows that Clint, at least, would laugh. But he's determined to bide his time until the perfect opportunity presents itself and the time has not yet arrived.

They'd agreed early on to leave Tony's workshop more or less intact if only because his equipment and his ability to make things for them was more important than the need for the extra space. Despite that, the walls are still lined with boxes and most of his cars have been moved outside or put to use—and oh, how it hurts Tony to see them treated like average, run-of-the-mill people movers instead of the works of art they are.

But unlike the rest of the group, Tony has set up camp in his shop, sleeping on a small twin mattress he'd personally driven several hours to collect from a miraculously intact mattress store outside Modesto. Apparently, looters have better things to loot than mattress stores. He doesn't blame them. He also has a newfound appreciation for the lack of speed limits and police officers to enforce them.

The addition of Loki has made things a little more complicated because Tony isn't keen on the idea of Loki sleeping upstairs with the rest of the team, but doesn't know what else to do with him.

In the end he lays out some couch cushions and blankets in a clean corner on the other side of the shop and tries very hard not to think about how it feels like setting up a bed for a stray dog. Upon finding the makeshift bed untouched the next morning, he gives it up as a bad job and leaves Loki to sort out his own sleeping arrangements as he sees fit. He doesn't, however, remove the cushions.

"You sleep under your table like a dog?" Loki queries disdainfully one day and wow, speaking of dogs.

"Didn't your mother ever teach you that if you don't have something nice to say, you shouldn't say anything at all?" Tony snarks back.

"No."

"Yeah, me neither," he snorts.

"It doesn't suit your status," Loki continues.

"But it sure beats sleeping upstairs. I never liked sleeping with other people," Tony shrugs.

"And yet you have quite the reputation."

"Sex and sleeping are different. Translation errors, Silvertongue?" Tony volleys easily.

Loki only huffs slightly in reply and turns away in a clear indication that he's finished with the discussion. Tony rolls his eyes dramatically and lets him go.

+

Tony wanders into the kitchen at just past dawn, shuffling around the counter in the dim light and barely sparing a glance for his sleep-ruffled reflection in the glass front of the oven. But he does run one half-hearted hand through his hair in a vain attempt at convincing it to lie down. It always starts to get curly when it gets longer like this. He needs a haircut.

"You're up early," Clint says from over by the coffee maker.

"You too," Tony mumbles back.

"It's quiet this time of day," Clint shrugs over a mug of coffee.

"Yeah, it is," Tony replies and he gets it, he really does, because it's the same reason he gets up before everyone else too.

He's spent most of his life learning to be alone and now his home is filled to bursting with so many people and sometimes he just needs a break.

Clint shifts over so that Tony can access the coffee maker and pour himself a cup of the stuff Clint just made. They haven't had coffee in a while, but Clint and Natasha got lucky and found a Starbucks that no one had quite gotten around to sacking properly and they'd brought home every last bean, pump flavoring and bottle.

They stand in companionable silence for a while, watching the sun rise over water that's so flat it looks like glass, like the world outside has momentarily frozen in time save for the slow march of the sun towards its zenith.

"Where's Loki?" Clint asks and Tony can't really fault him for wanting to keep track of Loki after all that has happened between them.

"Still asleep, last I knew," Tony shrugs.

"He hasn't been sleeping up here," Clint observes, eying Tony up.

"Are you complaining? I thought everyone hated him," Tony mutters back. He thinks Clint might be leading up to a joke, but it's too early in the morning for all of his brain cells to be firing at full capacity and he just can't be bothered to sort it out.

"Never took you for the blasphemous type," Clint starts and oh, Tony thinks, here we go. He gives Clint a raised eyebrow and waits for the rest.

"Then again maybe screwing a god isn't against Norse religious beliefs," Clint continues after a pause.

"I think it might be encouraged, actually," Tony volleys and quirks a slight smile at Clint over the blissfully hot and bitter mug of coffee as Clint starts laughing.

"Isn't Thor supposed to be the god of fertility?" Clint laughs.

"Lucky Jane," Tony chuckles.

"Then again, I guess of all people, you're the most likely to be able to keep up with a god," Clint smirks.

"You bet I am, bird boy," Tony says, adding a saucy wink for effect that sets Clint off laughing again. It's nice to hear the sound of his laughter, always so rare a thing and even more so these days. He's seen Natasha draw it out a few times with whispered words and coded references to things the rest of them may never be privy to and he sees the glitter of amusement in Clint's eyes at his own actions often enough. But this, now, is rare and it's moments like these that make the rest of their life these days just a little more bearable.

Later, Tony takes another mug of coffee down to Loki without really thinking about it and is amused to find that Loki has never had coffee and doesn't like it in the slightest. This may have something to do with the fact that sugar is rare and milk moreso, so there's not much to counter the bitterness that more seasoned caffeine addicts like himself have gotten used to.

Tony ends up drinking it himself when Loki shoves the mug back in his direction with a look of abject disgust. Waste not, want not after all.

Oatmeal seems to be more familiar territory for Loki, although the addition of the freeze dried strawberries included in the small packet is surprisingly exciting.

Thor, Tony had found during their brief acquaintance, seemed to take to new things quite easily despite what one might expect. He took on new customs and tried new foods with a kind of blanket confidence and respect that even Steve sometimes couldn't match. Loki, by contrast, is quicker and sharper, always noticing details and making decisions about what he does or does not like almost instantly. The holes in his knowledge of Midgard are never quite where Tony expects and it keeps him on his toes.

There are times when Tony wishes they weren't rationing the supplies they find and that he still had the freedom to take Loki to strange restaurants and make him try all kinds of things just to catalog the spectrum of his responses to things like sushi and frozen yogurt.

Sometimes, Loki wonders why he stays, why he bothers with this strange house full of odd people who don't even like him. But then he looks at Tony and sees in him an intense loneliness born over a lifetime and it hurts somewhere deep in his chest every time because it is so intimately familiar. And yet despite that, despite everything, Tony still looks him in the eye and sees _him_ , not what he is or even what he has done. Tony hasn't forgotten, never that, but he knows what it is to have sinned and to look up towards a brighter star above his head and want nothing more than to reach up and take hold. Perhaps that's why Loki stays, or perhaps, as he tells himself, he just doesn't have anywhere more important to be.

+

"So is the blue skin one of those things we just don't talk about?" Tony remarks one day in a tone clearly designed to sound completely cavalier. He doesn't even look up from the gauntlet he's been tinkering with for the last half hour while Loki sat and watched him work in silence.

"Hmm," Loki hums, frowning ever so slightly.

It's not really an answer, so Tony decides to push his luck a little further.

"Will you show me?" he asks next, swapping out the screwdriver in his hand for a pair of small pliers.

Loki looks at him sharply, expression mostly anger but hinting at surprise underneath it all and Tony thinks he might have a chance at getting out of this mess if he can find the right buttons to push.

"I promise not to kiss and tell," he teases, looking up and waiting for the gears to turn in Loki's head. It isn't long before Loki starts stalking towards him like he's a particularly annoying new piece of pray and it's actually pretty intimidating all things considered.

"Why?" Loki says, low and dangerous.

"Curiosity," he shrugs and hopes the blatant insolence won't mean he meets the same demise as the cat in the infamous idiom.

"Is that all I am? A curiosity to be studied?" Loki hisses and Tony immediately holds up his hands in a gesture meant to be defensive and calming all at once.

"That's not what I meant. Consider me a neutral party. I’m interested, but it's not like I can make you do it," he hurries to say and miracle of miracles it actually seems to work if the way Loki's shoulders relax slightly is any indication.

Loki lets out a breath, hesitating for a split second. This is the kind of secret that would send most citizens of Asgard running away or dashing for their weapons. But Tony knows nothing of Frost Giants and spends his time with such a bizarre group of beings already that his reaction might be an interesting one to observe.

Carefully, Loki holds up his hands to show off the way the blue seeps into his fingertips like dye dispersing in water, cascading down across his fingers, palms, wrists and disappearing into his sleeves only to reappear at his collar, sliding ink-like across his face.

He stands, motionless, like a man awaiting judgement and Tony prays he doesn't say the wrong thing because this is suddenly so much more personal than he expected.

"The red eyes are creepy," he comments idly. "But I could get used to it."

Loki looks at him like he's grown a second head and Tony can't help but laugh, a slow grin spreading across his lips. When he holds out his hands, Loki consents to place his in them and let Tony examine the markings up close. His skin is cool, but not cold to the touch and overall fairly similar to what it was before with the exception of the color and the raised markings on the surface. It doesn't appear to be scarification as Tony might have guessed, but it seems too geometric to be organic. Unfortunately, he suspects that even Loki may not know the full answer to that particular quandary if Thor's long-ago mention of adoption holds true.

Loki's Jotunn appearance is at once the truth and utterly foreign to him after spending centuries in the guise of a pale-skinned Aesir, and in a strange way, Tony's response to this other skin of everything Loki never knew he wanted. There's a quiet kind of reverence hidden in Tony's touch and his tone. He's not repulsed, never that, but neither is he fascinated in the way that demands Loki must be unmade—taken apart and laid out as component pieces to be analyzed to decide just what type of monster Loki really is.

He watches Tony quietly, observing the tilt of his shoulders and the lashes of his downcast eyes. He thinks of the glowing power in his chest and of all these people that Tony has saved and wonders how it's possible that Tony still doesn't quite believe he's one of the good guys, not really. Loki can see it in him in the same way he's always been able to see Thor's arrogance and Odin's cruelty where others were too blind or too afraid to see. He sees the truth and wonders that Tony cannot see it too.

"Thor said you were adopted," Tony asks, gazing flickering up for a moment curiously.

"I am Jotunn. A child stolen alongside other relics as the spoils of war and raised all my life on lies and deceit," he replies and there must be more bitterness in his tone than he thought because Tony's expression shifts subtly in response.

"Did Thor know?" Tony asks.

"No. The poor fool has always thought of me as his true brother," Loki laughs, a small, cruel noise. "We were raised together as princes and as equals."

Tony nods, considering, and then seems to realize he's been holding Loki's hands for a little longer than is strictly comfortable and lets them go.

“You didn’t know either,” Tony says, realizing.

“No. I didn’t,” Loki replies, a flat, toneless thing that gives nothing away.

“And here I thought I had daddy issues,” Tony jokes, eyes tracing over the lines that pattern Loki’s face and exposed neck. Loki’s jaw clenches slightly in annoyance, but otherwise he does nothing and Tony has to respect that control.

“Is it too forward if I tell you to take off your clothing?” Tony jokes and a moment later Loki is quickly reverting back to pale skin and green eyes with a snarl.

“Joke!” Tony calls after him as he stalks away, but by then it’s already too late.

+

Tony wakes to the sound of the sea breaking in washes against the rocks a hundred feet below the open windows of his workshop. He doesn't know why he wakes; there's no noise beyond that of the waves and no memory of the dreams that chased him into wakefulness. All there is is the ocean, the glimpses of stars on the horizon and the bars of pale moonlight that stretch across the clean-swept concrete floor of the workshop.

"I didn't mean to wake you," Loki says so quietly it's very nearly a whisper and that's when Tony realizes that one of the dark shapes before him is Loki, sitting in the shadow between one window and the next and watching him like he's the most interesting thing in all the nine realms.

"What are you doing? Contemplating murder?" Tony says, quirking a weak, sleepy smile, oddly unconcerned by the strange tableau. If Loki wanted to hurt him, he could easily have done so by now.

"Contemplating kindness, perhaps," Loki says. "Go back to sleep, Anthony."

So Tony does; he lets himself slip back into the welcoming arms of darkness and loses consciousness for several more hours.

The next time he wakes, Loki is gone but Tony has the strangest feeling that he hasn't been for long. The first strokes of purple are visible on the horizon, a sign of the coming day and Tony wonders as he lies there if Loki slept at all.

+

It happens again a week later after a long day of constant, monotonous rain that drums against the windows well into the evening. There’s no moon to light the workshop this time, leaving only the glow of the reactor in Tony's chest to wash across his sleeping form in waves of pale white and blue.

Loki watches him and thinks, as he does most nights, of all the myriad reasons he should leave. He should continue his aimless, pointless journey and leave this place behind to exist only in his memory as just one more stop along his road to ruin. And as he has on everyone one of those nights, he doesn’t move an inch.

"Can't sleep?" Tony murmurs, startling him.

"I'm not accustomed to so many people," Loki says and it's half the truth.

"Like sardines in a can,” Tony says, voice still slightly slurred and sleep-rough.

"Mmhm,” Loki says, even though he doesn’t know precisely what sardines are.

Tony drifts in the gray area on the edge of sleep and awareness for a while, listening to the rattle of water on glass and the sound of his own breathing. He doesn’t know when Loki moves and if he noticed him coming closer or stretching out on the bed beside to him, the memory has gone the way of the rain—spiraling down and away never to be seen again. He shifts his head to the side to look at Loki, now so close Tony could reach out and touch him and Loki returns the look without a word.

There’s another half to the truth from before: that neither of them are used to being so close to so many people, but they’re both intimately familiar with being so alone.

They don’t touch and there are no expectations. Tony allows Loki to share his bed and for now, in the middle of the night with the rain still coming down hard outside, they aren’t enemies or even friends, they’re just two lonely souls sharing space until the sunrise.


	4. Chapter 4

Sometimes Loki sleeps next to him and sometimes he doesn’t. The days pass and all of them get older a little at a time. Some days they find undiscovered convenience stores full of junk food and some days they have to turn away troops of people with skinny limbs and hollow eyes that they can’t help no matter how badly they want to. Sometimes they have to drive those same people away with force and it’s really no trouble at all for a group of super-powered, super-skilled Avengers, but Tony hates viciously every time he has to hurt someone who’s only trying to survive.

He hates when Steve with his big heart suggests they give each person a portion of water and he has to explain that if the word spread, they’d have half the population of California knocking on their door. He hates every time they’re reminded of how they were brought together to save the world and how in the end, they failed and there’s nothing left that they can do.

He catches Loki watching him sleep again and this time, he gets up and tells Loki to get dressed as he reaches for his own jacket on the back of a chair.

Tony leads him out to the truck, careful not to wake anyone else, and climbs into the driver’s side as Loki climbs into the passenger seat. Loki doesn’t ask any questions and seems to trust Tony to know where they’re headed as they pull out of the driveway and onto the road.

The moon is a day or two from being full and the weather is warm enough to roll the windows down and breath the salty sea air that whips in through the widows to tug at them as it passes by. Tony lets his arm hang out the open window as he drives, relaxing back and watching the world slip by outside, all high contrast with dark shadows and pale moon-lit highlights. It’s so bright out that he keeps the headlights off, content with the knowledge that running into another vehicle out here, on this road, at this time of night is astronomically unlikely.

He takes Loki to a place where the steep cliffs on which his home sits give way to a gently sloping beach of soft white sand. It was private property once, but that doesn’t mean anything to anyone anymore, so he doesn’t feel even the slightest bit guilty when he turns off the ignition and climbs out, the car door slamming shut behind him with a solid thump of metal.

Loki continues to follow him silently down the steep path that runs from the asphalt lot where they parked the truck to the beach. The path is lined in rough rope railings and layered in logs and slabs of rock to keep erosion at bay. At the end of the walkway, Tony toes off his shoes and travels the rest of the way in bare feet.

“Why are we here?” Loki asks at last when no purpose to the trip presents itself. Tony would love to enlighten him, but the problem is that Tony actually has no idea. He’s never been a beach person—too much heat and too much sun. There are other ways to see pretty girls in bikinis that don’t involve getting sand in his ears.

“What? No beaches on Asgard?” he quips, smiling slightly as Loki huffs out a hopeless laugh.

“Should have brought a blanket to sit on,” he muses then, looking down at his toes embedded in the sand.

“Forethought is clearly not your forte at four in the morning,” Loki says sagely, lowering himself to sit on the sand.

“I’m not sure if I should be offended by that,” Tony says, following suit.

It’s oddly comfortable, sitting on the pale beach and looking out over the water at the white circle of the moon. They exchange stories of a time before, when Tony was still wild and immature and Loki’s schemes were more mischief than real evil.

Tony laughs with his whole face, open and honest and smiling and Loki realizes he's never seen him like this before. For as long as he's known him, barely a heartbeat really, Tony has had the look of a man who carries the universe on the shoulders. The honest laughter suits him far better than pain ever has, even hidden by layers of irreverent humor and bravado, and it's all Loki can do to rest his chin on his knees and just watch with an answering smile on his own lips.

"I get it, you know?" Tony says some time later. "I spent half my life trying to live up to what dad wanted, even after he was dead and gone. And then one day... I realized I’d already passed him a while back," Tony explains quirks a slight smile. "There comes a day where you have to start living for yourself, you know?"

“Mmm,” Loki hums because in truth, he doesn’t understand. Odin’s expectations are all he’s ever known and the idea of being out from under them is almost foreign. Even now, so far from home, he sometimes wonders what Odin must think of his fallen son. He compares himself to Thor and feels that roiling, raw anger in his chest that grates against the genuine affection he has always held for his brother, not the golden, favored prince he represented.

"I believe you may be stronger than me," Loki says without looking right at him, so quietly it's almost a whisper.

"I'm really not," Tony laughs softly. "If Pepper were here, she'd tell you all about my temper tantrums."

"And yet, even in the midst of anger and pain, you want nothing more than to be _better_ and to do _good,_ ” Loki says with conviction.

"I've made my fair share of mistakes, taken revenge for revenge’s sake—" Tony argues.

"Did you ever inflict pain just for the satisfaction of it?" Loki cuts him off and watches with masochistic pleasure as Tony falters.

"... no,” he says at last.

“Then you are better,” Loki says, tone hard.

“I didn’t know what Obie was doing, but that doesn’t change the fact that I knew I was making weapons to kill people and I was _okay with it,_ ” Tony parries.

“And yet there came a day when you strove to do better,” Loki tells him.

“So, what, I can but you can’t?” Tony argues.

“Are you saying you want me to be one of the good guys, Stark?” Loki sneers with a cruel smile.

“I’m saying you’re already doing a pretty damn good job of it so far,” Tony says and is inordinately proud of himself for stunning Loki into silence.

They both shift awkwardly, looking away at the sea so they don’t have to make eye contact.

“You have a large heart, Stark,” Loki murmurs some time later.

“It’s actually pretty average. I’d know,” Tony says, tapping fingers against the metal faceplate of the reactor in his chest.

“What would happen if that were removed?” Loki asks. He’s always wondered about the light in Tony’s chest, why it was there and what purpose it served. There’s a certain protectiveness, a wariness that Tony has when things or people get too close to it that leads Loki to believe it’s important. But he knows little more than that.

“I’d die,” Tony says.simply. Loki blinks.

“Really?”

“Hey, you have your secrets. I have mine,” Tony shrugs.

“What is it?” Loki asks, leaning closer curiously.

“Miniaturized arc reactor. The same thing that runs the house except this one powers an electro-magnet that keeps the shrapnel embedded in my chest from entering my heart,” he says.

“So you do truly wear your heart on the outside,” Loki says, brushing fingers over the arc reactor, feather-light and almost reverent.

“I guess if you want to get poetic about it,” Tony replies.

He's so close Tony could close the space between them without any effort at all and at first it's almost excusable, but then Loki's eyes lift from the arc reactor and lock with his and there’s a moment where everything stops and Tony sucks in a breath and then—

A boom like thunder echoes across the water, startling them apart. Tony stares at the what looks like a meteorite, but so close and so bright that he can see it trailing fire and light. Loki stands up in a rush, standing stock still as he watches the arc of the falling star.

"Thor," he says with utmost surety as the object hurtles towards the ground.

“You think so?" Tony says, clambering to his feet as well.

“When was the last time you saw a falling star that smelled of lighting?” Loki asks without looking at him.

“Falling stars don't smell like anything to me. But I'll take your word for it,” Tony says, watching it disappear over the horizon.

"We must find him. The Bifrost is closed. Thor would not have come back without reason,” Loki says, all clipped urgency.

"When he left, he promised he’d come back,” Tony says.

"Even more reason we must find him. Thor does not break his vows easily and it has been too long,” Loki says, sweeping back towards their shoes and the pathway back to the car with Tony a step behind him.

+

They’re a day into their journey and Tony is still shocked that the Avengers all agreed to this. It’s a ludicrous plan: to hunt down what could easily have been nothing more than a chunk of space rock crashing into their atmosphere based on nothing but Loki’s word that it was, in fact, Thor. They don’t even know if there will be anything left to find when they get there.

Still, they’ve all been feeling pretty cooped up lately and Sam had volunteered to protect the house with Jarvis, Darcy and Rhodey. So it’s possible that a Mad Max-ian field trip is exactly what the team needed after all.

Clint's voice crackles to life over the two-way radio, dripping in pseudo-cheerfulness.

"Today on The Everything Sucks Show: We're still running low on, well, just about everything. The weather forecast is a 90% chance of acid rain and nuclear fallout followed by a 50% chance of something else fucking awful by this evening and some nice nuclear winter after the sun goes down. In current events: a new contender has taken the number one slot on the ‘most likely to kill us in our sleep’ leaderboard and his name starts with ‘lo’ and ends with ‘ki.’ The reigning champion Natasha Romanoff is understandably furious about this development..."

Tony glances over at Loki in the passenger seat, his long legs propped up on the dashboard and arms crossed across his chest as he looks out the window. There’s a peeved frown hovering on his lips and that’s more than enough reason to leave Clint's fake news broadcast playing as their rag-tag convoy drives through the California desert, kicking up a billowing cloud of dust as they go.

The trip passes in relative peace, a repeating daily cycle of sleeping in their cars, getting up, eating and driving until near sundown when they pick a place to set up camp all over again. They’re paired two to a car—Tony and Loki in a pickup, Clint and Natasha in a van and Steve and Bruce in some kind of pop-top camper which makes alternating driving shifts relatively simple. Teaching Loki to drive stick, however, had turned into a hilarious venture in and of itself. It’s probably fortunate they don’t have to drive in any populated areas for the time being.

Jarvis had calculated Thor’s trajectory for them before they’d left Malibu and given them an estimated location somewhere in New Mexico. The problem is that Thor is a person, not an inanimate object, and chances are excellent he’s moved since falling to Earth in a cloud of fire and lightning. Somewhere around the third day, Clint has the bright idea to paint Thor’s name on the roof of all of their cars on the off chance that Thor is flying around overhead, so then they all end up driving vehicles with “THOR” splashed across the roof in neon purple because Clint is an asshole and purple is his favorite color.

They do occasionally meet other groups, mostly nomadic but a few holed up in small towns and compounds. And although many of their interactions are civil enough, sometimes even friendly, there are two or three notable occasions when large groups of weapon-toting men and women think that a group of six people loaded up with good supplies will be an easy target. They’re dead wrong, of course and Tony can’t stop making Mad Max jokes the whole time that Steve and Loki don’t get and only Clint actually laughs at. But Natasha and Bruce do occasionally crack a smile.

It’s hot as hell most days and they all bitch and moan about it while they hide behind their cars and under strung-up tarps. But at night it’s pleasantly cool and Tony and Loki pile blankets and pillows into the bed of the pick-up and sleep under the wide-open sky, the stars thick and dense like Tony has never seen and Loki has missed ever since he left Asgard.

Maybe it’s the camping bringing back old memories, but Steve starts to tell them a lot of stories about his past, about Bucky and the Commandos and growing up in Brooklyn. Natasha and Clint pick and choose their tales, but they tell the group about Budapest and Montreal and Tibet and Tony almost dies laughing when he chokes on his dinner. Bruce stories are quieter, sadder, but he tells them about a girl he used to know and his work before he became the Hulk, a contrast to Tony’s wild, bright stories of money and fame, fast cars and plenty of liquor. Loki is the last of them to share any part of himself, but when he does it’s about the skies on other worlds, about dragons and swords and monsters the likes of which they have only ever heard of in fairy tales. He speaks of armies and kings and great golden halls so tall that the ceiling can’t be seen from the ground. But he also speaks of walking in the silence between the stars, and the deep, rich darkness of ice and fire and magic.

And later, when he falls asleep, Tony looks at him, the edges of his features soft and alien in the faint light of the stars overhead and thinks about how he hasn't wanted so badly to kiss someone since Pepper, since before.

+

It's funny, but in the end, Thor is the one who finds them. He lands in the middle of camp with an unholy boom of thunder and an answering crackle of lightning overhead from the storm that's been gathering all morning. It startles Tony awake with a jerk and a gasp of brief, blinding confusion that sometimes comes with teetering on the brink of waking and dreams. Loki's hand is there and gone on his arm, grounding him just enough and when Tony looks, he's already sitting up and staring at his brother, mouth pressed into a hard line.

Tony sits up too, groggy and buzzing with adrenaline in a way that has never been a pleasant combination in any universe.

"Thor," he mumbles and watches Steve emerge from his tent wearing a heavy canvas jacket over his white t-shirt.

"Good morning, friends," Thor says in greeting.

"About time," Clint yawns, shuffling into view.

"Please forgive my lateness," Thor says with a wry grin.

Loki shifts uncomfortably next to him and Tony realizes that Thor probably has no idea that his brother is here.

"Hey there big guy," he says, running a hand through his hair. Thor looks at him and then instantly to Loki and Tony feels the way Loki goes utterly still next to him. They look at each other for a long moment that stretches thick with anticipation and energy before Thor speaks.

"Loki."

"Thor," Loki replies flatly.

"I believe father may have known something he didn't tell me," Thor says cryptically, still looking his brother over.

"He knows thousands of things you do not," Loki snaps and just like that they're back at each other's throats.

"Behave, children," Tony says and bears the full brunt of Loki's glare for half a second before he returns it to his brother. Thor's eyes flicker between them curiously before he turns away entirely to speak with Steve, who's managed to get his boots on and make his way over.

"Welcome back," Steve says, quirking a slight smile at the way that Thor claps him on the shoulder with a force that would have bruised a lesser man.

"It is good to see you, friend. But Midgard is not what it was," Thor admits, attaching his hammer to some unseen clip on his belt under the long, silver-blue cloak draped around his shoulders to free his hands.

"No, it's not," Steve agrees heavily.

"Why are you here?" Loki demands, climbing from the truck bed.

"Father sent me," Thor replies and at Loki's dubious eyebrow, he smiles slightly. "But I have reason to believe mother was involved."

"Ah," Loki says shortly.

"Does that mean Odin cares enough to help us out after all?" Clint asks.

"After a fashion," Thor says carefully, considering his words. "He is unwilling to send any real aid, but he allowed me to come and gave me this." As he speaks, Thor retrieves another object from underneath his cloak and holds it up to allow the rest of them to see. It's unimpressive to look at, little more than a chunk of what looks like white volcanic rock embedded in a set of plain metal rings. But Loki sucks in a breath and Tony knows then that whatever it is, it's important.

"What is it?" Natasha asks. She too has noticed the way that Thor and Loki treat the object.

"An artifact from the vaults of Asgard," Thor says at the same time that Loki says, "a children's story."

"No one has never proven that it works," Loki carries on firmly.

"Great. But what is it _supposed_ to do?" Clint pipes up.

"A powerful enough sorcerer can use it to manipulate the fabric of time," Thor tells him.

"And, presumably, stop all of this from happening in the first place," Tony finishes for him. "Okay. But why bring it to us?"

He's not really a big fan of the look that Thor gives him then, half consternation and half disappointment like Tony shouldn't have had to ask.

"I was hoping you would be able to operate it, Anthony," he says.

"Me? Why me? I do science not magic," Tony replies and then remembers in some distant, back part of his brain Thor saying something about magic and science being one and the same on Asgard.

“No,” he says. “No way. I can not operate a rock. Get Loki to do it.”

“It is said that no Asgardian has been able to use it,” Thor says like this somehow explains something.

“Then it’s a good thing I’m not an Asgardian,” Loki says curtly and plucks the artifact from Thor’s gasp to examine it more closely.

“Really, Thor? You were pinning your hopes on Tony?” Clint laughs and gets affronted looks from both of them simultaneously.

“Let’s make breakfast and talk this over,” Steve says diplomatically to prevent any further bickering. He exchanges a look with Natasha who smirks back and laughs silently at Steve’s rolled eyes.

“Clint, will you go get Bruce?” Steve asks. Lately, Bruce has taken to getting up at dawn and hiking miles out into the desert to meditate before returning around the time the rest of them are up and moving around. In the event that they need him sooner, Clint’s eagle-eyes and general lack of cooking skill make him the perfect messenger to find and retrieve their favorite jolly green giant before breakfast is finished.

“Sure thing,” Clint says and heads back towards the van that he and Natasha share to get dressed properly.

Tony climbs out of his truck with a miserable sound when the cold air hits his previously covered skin and takes the blanket with him, appearances be damned. He sits on one of the large logs they’d dragged into a semi-circle around the fire the night before and waits for Steve to provide him with his morning dose of caffeine. Loki sits on his left and Thor on his right, which suits him well enough since neither brother seems inclined to start a fight over the top of his head at the moment. Natasha sits across from him on another log and they exchange a brief smile when Steve burns himself on the coffee pot and curses with a creativity and color that only a soldier could muster.

“It works,” Loki says apropos of absolutely nothing several hours of silent fiddling later. They all look at him, the question evident in every face.

“I just spent two days working it out and returned to this moment” he says and watches the dawning comprehension spread across the circle. Thor looks immeasurably proud of his brother, Clint looks vaguely dubious, Natasha looks intrigued, Steve surprised and Bruce contemplative. But Tony just looks plain impressed and that’s the one Loki likes the best and certainly not because he is slowly coming to terms with the fact that he genuinely _cares_ what Tony thinks.

“So could you do it? Go back to before all of this happened?” Tony asks.

“I believe so. The amount of energy needed is directly related to the length of the jump. Every day that passes is another that we won’t be able to retrieve,” Loki tells him and it’s weird, to be saying things like “we” about Loki and the rest of the Avengers. It’s strange to have the same goal.

“But couldn’t Loki jump back and, I don’t know, defeat us and take over the planet?” Clint points out, taking a break from sorting through his arrows.

“Clint—” Tony starts.

“Yes,” Loki says, cutting him off. “Easily.”

“You’re not helping your cause here,” Tony groans.

“But I have no desire to rule Midgard,” Loki informs them. “And it seems that all of you make better allies than I expected.”

“Allies?” Natasha asks.

“There are forces at work you cannot even begin to comprehend,” Loki says, meeting her eyes.

“The Mad Titan,” Thor supplies, earning a surprised glance from Loki.

“Mad Titan?” Steve queries, looking between them expectantly. There’s a moment of non-verbal communication in which the brothers decide who should explain.

“Thanos,” Thor says. “Midgard has already fallen, so he has turned his attention to the gates of Asgard and the other realms. I would have returned sooner, but father ordered the Bifrost and every path in or out of Asgard sealed shut.”

“Loki was working with Thanos,” Natasha says, expression hardening.

“For him,” Loki corrects. “It was preferable to being tortured for the rest of Eternity. I’m sure you’d understand.”

“Your lack of remorse is kind of disturbing, you know that?” Clint tells Loki who smiles a slow, evil thing.

“I never said I regretted my choice. Beholden to Thanos or no, I still would have been the king of an entire realm.”

“Except now Earth sucks and you don’t want it,” Tony snorts. “You’re hot then you’re cold.”

“You’re yes then you’re no,” Clint intones and they exchange a grin that makes it clear they’re sharing a joke that Loki isn’t privy to.

“But Earth isn’t going to be like this when he goes back. It’ll be the way it was before,” Steve points out.

“As I said, I no longer have any interest in ruling this world,” Loki sighs, sounding put-upon like he shouldn’t have to explain this more than once.

“But what reason do you have to save it?” Bruce says. Most of them miss the way that Loki’s eyes flicker to Tony and then away and even if they do notice, perhaps they don’t think anything of it. But Loki is still annoyed at his own failure to hide his reaction. He’s not a team player, doesn’t want to save the universe or be the big hero. But if ever there was a selfish reason to do a selfless thing, that would be that reason he chose.

“If you’d like to find someone else to work this artifact, be my guest,” Loki says coldly.

“We’re not saying we don’t appreciate the offer,” Steve says. “We’re just having a nice, civil discussion about it like adults.”

“There’s also the part where the longer we sit around talking about it, the less time we’ll have,” Tony points out and Loki nods once in agreement.

“I don’t know how far back I will be able to go. I don’t know the rules of this object without using it more, but we don’t have the time or the luxury of experimentation. It’s possible that major landmarks in the timestream will be more difficult to navigate. Perhaps not. There’s aren’t any instructions,” Loki shrugs.

“We must also hurry before Thanos or anyone else learns that this object has left Asgard. Many will want it for their own reasons,” Thor adds seriously.

“Well, the power to control time is nothing to be scoffed at,” Steve says.

In the end, they collectively agree to do it the next morning. There’s no reason that anyone can find to wait and sudden though it may seem, the clock is ticking and Loki seems to think he’ll be back at full strength by then.

Given that decision, Tony really shouldn’t have been so surprised when Loki kissed him.

 


	5. Chapter 5

It happens at end of the evening, well after they’ve finished eating and everyone else has drifted off and gone their separate ways.

“Hello to you too,” Tony murmurs, half laughing against Loki’s mouth.

“Anthony,” Loki says, curling his fingers around the shape of Tony’s cheek and jaw, touch reverent and gentle. Tony leans into it easily, lets their foreheads touch as the moment holds, stretches, floats suspended in time for a few beats without moving. Tony doesn’t reply, doesn’t know what to say that won’t snap the thread, so he just tilts closer and lets Loki kiss him again. It’s longer and deeper with an edge to it that Tony can’t quite identify.

The next time they pull apart for breath, Tony climbs to his feet, grinning as he offers a hand to Loki and Loki takes it to pull himself up. He leads the way to the truck and chuckles when Loki pushes him up against it before he even has a chance to climb in. There’s a dull thump as his back hits metal and then Loki is on him, kissing him eagerly and sliding those long, delicious fingers under the hem of his shirt to touch skin.

It's hurried and rough and hot, skin against skin and ragged breaths shared in the close space between them. Tony laughs, quiet and a little desperate and thinks that even now, at the end of the world, he's managing to uphold his reputation by screwing a god and their enemy, the self-same asshole who started all this in the first place. Except he’s not their enemy anymore and he might be a god but he’s as human as anyone Tony has ever met, flawed and lonely and brilliant.

Somehow, he manages to maneuver Loki up and into the truck on top of the blankets that are still there from the night before before Loki manages to make him lose all sense.

“Is this end of the world sex?” Tony whispers when Loki kisses him.

“I suspect that phrase has more significance to you than it does to me,” Loki replies before kissing him again.

“It means we don't even like each other that much but it's the end of the world so we might as well get our rocks off one last time,” Tony explains the next time they break apart, chuckling softly.

“Then yes, I believe it is,” Loki says, pushing him back against the blankets. It’s weak even to his own ears, a lie that neither of them believe. This tiny, fragile thing between them is still new, but growing stronger with every day that passes and this has been a long time coming.

“Guess it doesn’t matter either way,” Tony says looking up at the long, lean angles of him. Loki is all dark shadows, variations on a theme of black and deep gray save for the orange flares around the edges where the light of the dying fire reaches him

“No, I suppose not,” Loki says, curling hands around his wrists and pushing them up over his head as he straddles Tony’s waist. He’s a lot heavier than his appearance might lead one to believe, but Tony isn’t complaining. He’s not even really paying attention, as a matter of fact, particularly when Loki rolls hips against his, fluid and sinful and forces Tony’s breath stuttering out of his mouth.

Loki brings his wrists together, grasping them both in one hand so that the other is free to trail down Tony’s body, teasing around the curve of the arc reactor under the fabric of his shirt and then lower, across the planes of his chest and stomach.

“How long has it been, Stark?” Loki murmurs against the hollow of his throat. “How long has it been since you’ve felt anything but your own hand?”

“Should’ve known you’d be into the dirty talk,” Tony replies with a breathless laugh. “What with that clever tongue of yours.”

“Oh, you have no idea how clever my tongue is,” Loki replies, every syllable dripping with innuendo.

“I’d sure like to find out,” Tony grins and rocks his hips up against Loki to demonstrate, drawing out a pleased hum that’s far too sensual to be legal.

Loki shifts to mouth along the edge of his jaw, pressing kisses and sucking hard enough to bruise at the tender skin under his ear. He touches and strokes, cataloging Tony’s body and remembering as much as he can for a time when Tony won’t remember him.

He thinks of using magic to make their clothing slip away, almost does, but in the end he decides against it and takes his time. Tony is more than happy to lift his hips and let Loki tug his jeans down around his thighs if it means Loki’s fingers are one layer of fabric closer to touching him. And touch him Loki does, teasing long fingers against sensitive skin to find all the places that make Tony gasp and moan.

Tony’s eager, kissing back hard and letting Loki hold him in place for a while longer before Loki decides he wants the use of both hands and lets his hold on Tony's wrists go in favor of mapping yet more of Tony’s body with hands and lips and tongue.

Tony takes the chance and pushes himself up, tugging Loki firmly into his lap and kissing him, hot and dirty. The joint effort of tugging Loki’s shirt off over his head is as good a moment as any to pause, take a breath and grin at each other.

“Remind me why we weren’t doing this earlier?” Tony quips and earns rolled eyes and an affectionate huff for his trouble before Loki employs the exceptionally effective method of shutting him up by occupying his mouth with other tasks.

Tony stretches fingers across the planes of smooth skin, skimming hands along his ribs just to touch. Loki is warm and solid in his hands and god, why did they wait to do his until the end, until just before everything changes. He doesn’t know if this universe will be erased when Loki goes back, or if this universe will continue to march on with the exception of one solitary god, but neither one is an ending he likes the sound of.

Loki must feel the shift, or perhaps he’s been thinking the same all along, but he pushes fingers through Tony’s hair then, tipping his head back and looking down at him affectionately for a long, suspended moment before pressing a kiss to Tony's forehead, his only acknowledgement before he moves on. It’s really only the briefest of moments, slipped in between one and the next like bookends. But it twists at something painful and so quietly sad in his chest that Tony can’t help but hold on a little tighter. Then Loki is stripping the hoodie from his shoulders followed swiftly by his t-shirt and the moment slips away.

Loki makes another soft, pleased noise when they press together, skin against skin in the cool night air and tips his head back to let Tony kiss along his shoulder and up along the column of his throat, chasing the white-blue light of the exposed arc reactor between them.

On a whim, Tony rolls them over so that Loki is stretched out on his back underneath him and the gesture barely even breaks their rhythm. It’s easy from there to divest Loki of his pants and takes only a moment of separation to push his own the rest of the way off.

Loki smirks slightly at him when he takes a moment to admire the scene, shifting and using one of Tony’s own idioms against him.

“See something you like?” he asks, tone light and anything but innocent as he lets his legs fall open a little.

“Do you really have to ask?” Tony laughs, skimming fingers teasingly along Loki’s thigh.

“Better get to it then,” Loki teases, encouraging Tony down to kiss him again, rich and hot. Tony wraps his hand around Loki’s length and gives it one, long smooth stroke from base to tip, admiring the handsome flutter of Loki’s eyelashes all the while and the way his chest moves when his breath catches in his throat.

He looks down at Loki’s length in his hand, considers it and then shifts down to take it in his mouth. Loki is warm and heavy on his tongue and Loki’s hand in his hair is encouraging, not quite pushy but clearly eager for more. So he takes as much as he can, letting Loki slide into his mouth until the head bumps the back of his throat and curling fingers around the rest.

“Tony,” Loki moans softly and wow, Tony has heard a lot of people moan his name, but this has got to be in the top three at least. He swears he’d not biased.

“I have to get something out of the truck,” Tony groans the next time he pulls off to catch his breath, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand as he looks up at Loki. Loki never thought that watching Tony suck his cock would be quite so attractive, but in this instance he is immensely pleased to have been so utterly wrong. Tony’s mouth is red, his breathing a little rushed as he watches Loki and it’s delicious to realize it’s all for him.

“Just who do you think it is you’re talking to?” Loki smirks and holds out a packet of lube with a flourish like he’s just finished summoning it.

“Did you just magic lube out of thin air?” Tony asks, stunned and on the verge of laughing.

Eventually, Loki gives in and says, “I stole it from the glove compartment earlier,” with a smile and a roll of his eyes, which actually does set Tony to laughing helplessly against his thigh. Loki just gives him an affectionate swat to the head.

When he can breath again, Tony licks a wet stripe up Loki’s length before swallowing him down again, reveling in every desperate noise he drags out of Loki’s mouth. Eventually, Loki’s fingers tighten in his hair, urging him off and up the length of Loki’s body.

“I refuse to come so early,” Loki murmurs against his lips before occupying his mouth with lips and tongue so that all Tony can do to reply is kiss him back with an amused hum.

The first slick finger Tony slides into him barely elicits a reaction except perhaps that Loki’s kisses get a little more urgent. The second produces a really wonderful noise and the third makes him arch and gasp attractively. Tony is quick to pull back and thrust them in again, loves the way that Loki’s eyes fall shut briefly and his mouth drops open, love the way Tony’s name sounds when he breathes it like there isn’t quite enough air.

“Loki,” Tony whispers against his skin, presses kisses and silent, unspoken promises over his heart as Loki wraps arms around him and holds on. He says it again when he withdraws his fingers and Loki whines softy and once more with the first hot stretch of Loki around him when he slicks himself and pushes in for the first time. He hears Loki’s breathing hitch sharply and tries to pause, but Loki only digs fingers into his shoulder and says, “no” and “don’t stop” so Tony doesn’t. He thrusts his hips gently, pushing just a little further each time until he’s fully seated inside him and Loki’s fingers have left lines of what he’s sure will be bruises on his shoulders in the morning.

The first experimental roll of his hips, most of the way out and then back in makes them both gasp and the second sends hot shivers along his spine. Tony watches as Loki falls apart in slow degrees, murmuring demands for more and harder and just plain nonsense into the night air and Tony doesn’t always comply, can’t make it that easy, but most of the time he does and it’s a wondrous sight to see, Loki’s spread out for him and him alone. He revels in the look on Loki’s face when their eyes meet, vulnerable and open and wonders if he looks the same.

Loki drags him down and kisses him hard when he comes, muffling the sound he might have made in the taste of Tony’s mouth. He arches and clenches and feels Tony’s rhythm stutter in response, feels Tony moan against his mouth and start thrusting harder, faster, chasing his own release and carrying Loki through his until he’s sensitive and gasping from the feeling of it.

He misses the look on Tony’s face when he comes too because he buries his face in Loki’s shoulder when it happens, gasping and shaking. He stays there for a few moments after going still, supporting most of his own weight even though he couldn’t crush Loki if he tried. Then he pulls out and tries to shift away, but Loki catches him, pulls him in close again and smiles at the soft laugh Tony lets slip as Loki kisses him one last time for good measure. They end up curled together, protected from the cold by the blankets and each other.

Loki listens to the sound of Tony’s breathing as he falls asleep and looks up at stars so utterly different from the ones he grew up with. He'd always meant to ask for the stories of these stars, the constellations that humans have doubtless made up over their centuries on this world and all the tales that go along with them. But he never did and now he’s out of time.

+

Tony wakes some time just before dawn to find their camp shrouded in a thin layer of white-gray fog that will likely burn away when the sun rises.

“You should sleep,” Loki says quietly from behind him, eyes still closed. They have hours yet before the others get up.

“Good morning,” Tony says with a small smile. Loki doesn’t reply so much as make a small noise of agreement.

“Sleep,” Loki commands again.

“Can’t,” Tony replies.

"You're unhappy,” Loki says, eyes sliding open and how he knows, Tony has no idea.

"I just keep having to remind myself that this is for the greater good," Tony sighs softly.

"But you wish that you could be selfish instead,” Loki says.

"It's just—you're going to go back today and then all of this will never have happened," Tony explains.

“I could stay,” Loki tells him and means it with every fiber of his being. He has no real obligation to these people, doesn’t even know for certain if he’ll be able to change what happened. If Tony asked him to stay, right here and now, he would.

“No,” Tony says and Loki thinks _damn him_ , damn him for that hero’s heart that lies beneath the light in his chest..

Loki doesn't speak for a long time, but eventually Tony feels him shift and curl up along the shape of Tony's back, pulling him close.

"Perhaps I'll come find you after everything is over," Loki murmurs, barely a whisper against the back of Tony's neck. He sounds uncertain, like he doesn't know if it will be possible or if that other Tony will even want anything to do with him when this Tony is beyond his reach.

“You do that,” Tony says. But the truth is, he doesn’t know what will happen either. He doesn’t believe in destiny or soulmates and maybe in another universe where things happen just a little bit differently, he and Loki never stop being enemies. Maybe they kill each other or maybe they fight until the end of their days. Maybe Loki disappears into the shadows between worlds or Tony dies in his sleep, and like ships passing in the night, they are never made fully aware of each other and what they could have been.

“Thank you,” Loki whispers, so softly Tony might have missed it if he hadn’t been paying attention.

“For what?” he asks, curious.

“You have shown me so much kindness,” Loki says, pressing a kiss just below his hairline.

“I didn’t do much. Just some basic human decency. I have this thing about second chances, you know,” Tony says, trying to shrug it off.

“It was still far more than I deserved,” Loki replies.

“I don’t know about deserved. I just did what I felt like doing at the time,” Tony says, lips curving in answer to the smile he feels against the back of his neck.

"You really are an enigma, Anthony Stark," Loki hums with good humor.

+

It’s anti-climactic really, when Steve says “where should we do this?” over breakfast and Loki shrugs and says that it doesn’t matter in the slightest. There’s no magic circle or ceremony, so in the end Clint suggests a spot on top of a nearby mesa and they part ways briefly to take care of last minute chores, collect gear and prepare for the hike.

Loki stops Tony near his truck, pressing him up against it where no one else can see and pressing an urgent, deep kiss to his mouth before pulling away.

“Saying our goodbyes already?” Tony tries to joke and knows it comes out a little flat.

“Would you rather I did that in front of your friends?” Loki snarks and it’s good to see that no amount of sex or morning cuddling can take the bite out of him.

“I want to give you something,” Loki says after a beat, still standing well inside Tony’s personal space.

Tony nods easily, surprised to find he actually doesn’t mind the invasion.

"If we ever meet again, even if I do not know you, or you do not know me, show this to me,” Loki says, pressing a small, ornate object into his palm.

"What is it?" Tony asks, holding it up to eye level to better examine it. It’s a simple piece of silver metal in the shape of a triquetral, the same symbol that Tony has noticed showing up time and time again where the brothers are concerned, incorporated into their clothing and possessions without any clear pattern.

"Uru. The same metal from which Mjolnir is forged. It is the only metal that can be bound directly to magic,” Loki explains.

"Does it do something?” he asks, flipping it around.

"As far as I can tell, no,” Loki says with a wry smile and chuckles when Tony’s response is an incredulous look.

"My mother gave it to me when I was very small. She said one day I might have need of it,” Loki continues.

"And you've been carrying it around ever since?" Tony says and Loki nods.

"You're giving me a lump of metal,” he says, smiling. He knows that this is important, that Loki could easily be giving him his most valued possession. But he wouldn’t be Tony Stark if he passed up the chance to make a joke.

"Metal imbued with nearly two thousand years of my magic,” Loki huffs and although his tone is annoyed, there’s mischief in his eyes.

"Is that how old you are?" Tony says, quirking an eyebrow.

"Close enough,” Loki shrugs.

"You cougar, you,” Tony laughs. Loki just gives him an odd, uncomprehending look.

"I would know it anywhere the moment I felt it. There is no other object like it in all the nine realms, so do not lose it,” he demands, closing Tony’s hand over the metal.

“I won’t,” Tony says, meeting his eyes and there’s a distinct lack of levity in his tone. He wants Loki to understand that he means it.

This isn’t a love story. There’s no glass slipper and they’re not destined to be together forever. Tony is a brilliant, insane mechanic with a penchant for recklessness and heroism and Loki is an alien who tried to take over the Earth with a glowing blue stick. They come from different worlds and they barely know each other, but they both feel acutely the loss of potential, of what might have been.

+

The group stands atop the chosen hill in a loose semi-circle with Loki at the center, artifact in hand. It seems strange to say a formal goodbye, so Loki, clad in full armor and leather that Tony hasn’t seen in weeks, stands tall and begins the process without so much as a word.

The object floats up a few inches out of Loki’s hands to hang suspended in mid-air and then runes flare to being along the curve of each concentric metal ring. Slowly, the rings begin to rotate, first the innermost followed soon after by each of it’s brethren unless all of the rings are spinning in apparently random directions and gaining speed with every cycle.

Arcing streams of light that Tony can only compare to solar flares start to slip out of the stone in the center, magic made visible as light though he feels no heat to accompany it.

“I would take all of you if I could,” Loki explains calmly, utterly unafraid of the object in his hands. “But it has been too long and I’m not certain that any being in the universe possesses that much magic,” he says, letting his hands fall away as the sphere floats higher above their heads.

“Will you be able to do it alone?” Steve says.

“Perhaps,” Loki says cryptically. He wishes he’d had more time to experiment and learn the laws of this object. He’s still not certain he even has enough power to reach back to before The Battle of New York or if he’ll fall short and it will all have been for naught. He learned before that only he is able to see the tendrils of magic and time curling all around them. He looks at each of the Avengers around them and see all at once their past, present and many possible futures. He looks at Tony and see a thousand timelines where Tony doesn't know him and perhaps a handful where he does and Loki finds that he has to look away just as quickly.

“Good luck, brother,” Thor intones solemnly, stubborn as always in his outright refusal to stop using the moniker.

“See you on the other side,” Tony adds, doing his level best to smile.

“There’s just one problem,” Loki says suddenly, eyes snapping to Tony’s and there’s a sudden wave of concern that runs around the circle at the words.

“I’m not a hero.”

 


	6. Chapter 6

There’s a sickening lurch that runs through all of Tony’s body at once and he has enough time to see the horrified faces of the rest of his team before the world goes white. He can’t feel his limbs, isn’t even sure if he has limbs anymore or if everything is just empty nothingness as far as his fragile human mind can perceive. Up and down have no meaning, nor does the passage of time or the need for basic substances like oxygen or light. The bizarre thought comes to him that perhaps his atoms have been scattered and that all he is now is the very last scrap of his consciousness floating alone in the abyss before that too rejoins the ebb and flow of the universe.

He wonders if Loki betrayed them, if the object that Thor brought was never really an ancient Asgardian time-travel device at all, but something else that they unwittingly delivered right into his waiting hands. He doesn’t know what Loki did to him or why and he doesn’t have the time to think about it because that’s when reality slams back into him like the ground after a hundred yard fall and it _hurts._

Tony jolts back to consciousness and finds himself in his suit, flying full tilt above Manhattan, his HUD splashed red with the marks of attacking Chitauri.

It's like every nightmare he's had in the last year, but too hot and too loud and too _real._

“No!” Tony shouts into the helmet, the sound sharp and too-loud in the small space. Jarvis doesn't understand what he's suddenly shouting about, couldn't possibly know that the version of Tony that's in the suit now isn't the same version that was there sixty seconds ago. He doesn't know that this Tony knows the future, or at least one possible version of it that he is, as of this very moment, desperately trying to avert even though it will mean losing Loki and everything they built between them.

He doesn’t know why Loki sent him instead, doesn’t know what Loki thinks he can achieve and certainly not what Loki thinks he’ll do _now_ when it’s almost too late. He’s been here before. He failed.

And that’s when some scrap of an idea Loki said to him what seems like an age ago comes back: Kill Selvig. Close the portal. But no, that won't work. Tony is incapable of killing an innocent and the warhead has already been launched. Closing the portal might stop the full-scale nuclear holocaust of their world, but it won't save New York and the tens of millions of people who live here.

Tony looks at the red dot on his HUD that represents the missile, still far out over the water and then he looks up at the portal and thinks “let’s see how those bastards like it” and just like that he’s changing course. Jarvis helps with the calculations, figures out just where to intercept and when and where to add thrust. He helps guide Tony through the wormhole with his arms wrapped around a nuclear device, right into the vacuum of space where his suit was never designed to go.

Jarvis even offers to call Pepper and oh, god, Pepper. Tony wants to hear her voice one last time but the call fails, of course it does, and then there’s nothing to do but feel his body go weightless as the suit shuts down system by system, the lights flickering and dying while Jarvis speaks one last sorrowful goodbye into his ear. The Chitauri army is spread out above him, blotting out the stars and he watches as the largest shadow of all explodes in a silent ball of fire.

When he wakes up, he’s lying on the asphalt in front of Grand Central Station with Steve, Thor and Hulk gathered around him and everything hurts like the Hulk punched him through a building. He ears are ringing and he doesn’t even remember the first quip that comes out of his mouth before he starts laughing. Steve’s face relaxes and his shoulders slump and when he allows himself a weak, relieved smile, it’s easy to forget that this Steve doesn’t even really know Tony yet. Thor joins in easily, humming with the thrill of victory and even Hulk seems pleased with himself.

Natasha radios in from the top of the tower, demanding to know if Tony survived and Tony hijacks the conversation before Steve can reply and croons that he always knew she cared. He can almost hear her rolling her eyes on the other end on the line.

They go out for Shawarma after it’s all over and sit in an exhausted, silent stupor as they eat their food. For once, the silence suits Tony just fine because he’s still too busy marveling over the fact that he actually did it: he changed history.

+

It's almost four in the morning when Tony makes his decision. He's exhausted right down to his bones, weary in every cell, but he can't sleep and he knows that the reason for that is curled up, chained and muzzled on the hard tile three floors below him in the most secure lab he has left.

“Sir, you're not allowed in there,” one of the SHIELD agents tells him when he arrives, striding down the hall and towards the door like he owns the place which, technically, he does.

“I'll be fine,” he says, shrugging the agent's cautionary hand off his shoulder with a little too much vehemence. He's young, but he reminds Tony a little of Coulson and even though that was months ago in Tony's timeline, not hours, it doesn't make the wound sting any less. He'd never discussed it with Loki and he still doesn't know if that was a good decision or a bad one.

“Sir—”

“How long has Fury had you standing here? You know you're supposed to take a break if you work more than six hours, right? New York State law,” he says, meeting the agent's gaze and refusing to back down. It isn't really a question and he doesn't make any effort to make it sound like one. The pair of agents exchange glances and he catches just the barest glimmer of uncertainty, so he keeps pushing.

“In fact, make it midnight breakfast. On me,” he carries on, flipping out his wallet and waving a hundred dollar bill at the younger of the Agents who looks briefly torn between desire and duty before he takes it gingerly from Tony's hand.

“Have fun, kids,” Tony says jauntily, watching them as they shuffle down the hallway, still exchanging looks like they aren't sure if Fury is going to wring their necks for this. But Tony is Iron Man, an Avenger, a hero who just chose to fly a nuclear device into an alien-filled portal in the sky with no real hope he'd survive just to save the planet. So they figure he's not about to just let Loki out of his cage.

Probably.

The moment they leave, Tony's attention snaps back to the figure sitting, quiescent in the center of the lab, his false, charming smile fading as quickly as it had come.

Loki follows him with his eyes, wants to ask what he really wants, wants to see if it's possible to twist Stark with his words alone. But the damned muzzle means that all he can do is glare as Tony keys a code into the pad next to the door and steps in through it, allowing it to fall shut behind him with the hiss and snap of a lock engaging.

Tony walks over and drops to one knee before him and thinks ironically that it's like some kind of bizarre, twisted parody to be kneeling in front of him now.

Loki jerks slightly at the first touch of his hand, expression over the top of the muzzle going angry to cover the fear.

“Easy there,” Tony laughs and it's so easy, like he's talking to an old friend, not an enemy.

Loki stills, embarrassed by his automatic reaction and determines that he will not let it happen again.

The muzzle slides out of his mouth slowly, slick with saliva and the first stretch of his jaw as he opens his mouth fully aches deep in the muscle.

“Why?” he says flatly and eyes Tony with distrust. “I tried to destroy you,” he wants to snarl.

“I just want to talk,” Tony says and proceeds, to Loki's consternation, to sit down cross-legged on the floor in front of him.

“I don't,” Loki tells him curtly.

“I also have something to show you,” Tony says and reaches into his pocket to draw out a small object that Loki recognizes the instant Tony’s fingers open to reveal the simple knot-like design wrought in uru. The look of open astonishment on Loki's face when he realizes what it is he's looking at makes Tony smile.

“It's the real deal. You said you'd be able to tell,” he says and holds it out so that Loki, even with his hands manacled together, can touch it if he wants. Loki takes it from him, movements awkward because of the chains, and turns it over and over in his fingers.

“Where did you get this?” he murmurs at last.

“You said to show it to you if we ever met again,” Tony muses without answering Loki's question, prompting a look that's mixed curiosity and annoyance.

“I said?” Loki asks. He remembers every one of the few words they've exchanged and none of this sounds familiar.

“I'm from the future—an alternate one. I looped back in time to save the world. You helped me,” Tony says with a shrug and no amount of blank staring on Loki's part makes him lose that grin and admit to his poorly timed joke, for a joke it must be. It's just too ridiculous to believe.

“I hope you're comfy because it's story time,” Tony sighs eventually when no reply seems to be forthcoming and before Loki can even answer that no, he isn't comfortable, Tony launches into his tale.

It takes almost an hour and by the end of it, Tony's body hurts from sitting on the hard floor for so long. Being beaten all to hell earlier in the day certainly doesn’t help either.

“And that brings us to, well, now,” Tony finishes.

Loki sits in a silence that's half amusement and half utter bewilderment. He thinks that Stark must have gone absolutely insane or that he's playing some kind of very strange interrogation game. But when he looks down at the piece of uru that sits unobtrusively on the floor in the space between them, he's suddenly certain it's the truth.

“Do you want it back?” Tony asks, following his gaze.

“No,” Loki says quietly and he can't help the small smile when Tony looks at him in surprise.

“Keep it. I already have one and two of the same object should never exist in the same space.”

“Paradox. Right,” Tony laughs and picks it up, rubbing his thumb across the design.

“So you believe me?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“Promise not to cause any trouble?”

“I can't guarantee that I won't be _any_ trouble at all,” Loki smirks. “But I shall endeavor not to commit any truly heinous crimes for the time being.”

“Good enough,” Tony sighs and shifts forward, reaching for his handcuffs.

“Only Thor can remove them,” Loki says, before Tony can even try.

“Then I guess we'll just ask him nicely in the morning,” Tony groans, pushing himself to his feet and stretching expansively.

“Come on. Up. Let's go,” Tony commands and holds out his hand.

“Where?” Loki asks, ignoring the hand and getting to his feet by himself, albeit a little unsteadily. Healing ability of a god or no, some of the bones shattered by the green beast still grind against each other painfully.

“Well for one thing, you could use a shower,” Tony says over his shoulder, already leading the way from the room.

Loki falls into step behind him, glaring at the back of his head as though it will give him the answers he seeks.

“I don't think your new friends will approve," Loki murmurs, eyes flicking down the hallway, still considering possible escape routes.

“They probably won’t," Tony admits, aware that it's a gross understatement. The rest of the team will probably go nuts the second they find out. But he convinced them once, maybe it’s possible to do it again.

Loki hums carelessly in reply, still following in Tony's footsteps, his brain working to make sense of all of this.

“Stark?” he asks at last when they're half way down the hallway and utterly alone. He could snap Tony's neck and throw him out the window right now, even with the handcuffs. But strangely, he finds he's not particularly interested.

“What were we to each other?” he asks, curious about the part of the story that Tony seems to have left out.

Tony stops and half turns so that their eyes can meet.

“Honestly?” he says and when Loki nods, he quirks a smile. “Just a couple of assholes wandering the wastelands feeling sorry for ourselves.”

“Now that I do believe,” Loki replies, huffing out a quiet laugh.


End file.
